Quick, fill in the blank from this NYT blurb: "_______ officials are aggressively silencing domestic political opposition while accommodating religious conservatives."
A) Egyptian B) Pakistani C) Saudi or D) Syrian
Today the answer is D, but if you guessed A, B, or C, I totally understand.
Iraq
John Kerry writes that Bush should get tougher with the Iraqis and threaten to pull out the troops unless they form a unity government by May 15. Then, he says, we need to agree to a timeline to pull out troops by the end of the year. I'm not sure what the RNC will say, but I'm guessing they will say that Kerry was against arbitrary deadlines before he favored them.
In contrast to the 2nd place finisher of '04, David Ignatius says let's not get overhasty and mess with the delicate bargaining that's going on in Iraq: "[I]t would be crazy for an impatient America to talk itself into defeat and pull the plug prematurely."
Latin America
Chavez wants Venezuela's oil reserves to be officially revised upwards, so he can get a bigger OPEC production quota. Much of Venezuela's "heavy crudes" -- which are more difficult to refine into usable oil -- are not counted in the official reserves. It becomes economical to produce the heavy crudes around $40 a barrel, so naturally Chavez wants a long-term deal with consumer nations that sets the price at $50:
A $50-a-barrel lock-in would open the way for Venezuela, already the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, to demand a huge increase in its official oil reserves - allowing it to demand a big increase in its production allowance within Opec.
Venezuela's oil minister Raphael Ramirez told Newsnight in a separate interview that his country plans to ask Opec to formally recognise the uprating of its reserves to 312bn barrels (compared to Saudi Arabia's 262bn) when Mr Chávez hosts a gathering of Opec delegates in Caracas next month.
With per-barrel prices hovering in the $60s, and the supply quite tight, I'm not sure why Chavez would worry about the price falling below $50 a barrel. Also not sure why that heavy crude isn't counted right now with prices so high. I'll figure this out and post about it later.
The BBC's series on Latin America has excellent pieces: how the United States dropped the ball in the region, and how, in Brazil, we're losing influence to China. If you'd like to know more about Peru's April 9 election, check out a nice primer at the WaPo.
Elsewhere
Yes, you read this correctly: "U.S. utilities, breaking with their own trade association, urged Congress to impose mandatory restrictions on emissions of carbon dioxide, a gas that contributes to global warming."
U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow is thinking about stepping down. Thai PM Thaksin actually does step down. Jafari refuses to step down. A political crisis in France -- will Dominique de Villepin be forced to step down? Rob Portman -- no chance he's stepping down -- is pessimistic about WTO trade talks.
By the way, how about that slick redesign of nytimes.com?
Read More
